Bridgeport Stumptown Tart 2013

This year's Stumptown Tart is being released tomorrow (Thursday, April 18, 2013) at the Bridgeport Brewpub, 5:30-8:30 PM.  This year's brew highlights blueberries for the first time in the 6-year run of the series, but also has raspberries and blackberries.  All told, there are 15 pounds of fruit per barrel; the fruit was the most expensive ingredient in the brew -- 150% of the cost of the malt.

I got to taste this year's batch yesterday just as the first bottles were rolling off Bridgeport's line.  It's a good one.  Forget about the "Tart" in the name, this isn't a sour beer.  As usual, there is a little bit of Belgian tripel character -- half of the batch is brewed with Bridgeport's house ale yeast, half with a Belgian strain -- and the blueberries come through nicely.  This might be the best batch since the Cherry Stumptown Tart in 2009.  The beer is pretty, and the blueberries give a nice cotton-candy pink tinge to the head.   There is live yeast in the bottle, but it's not really a beer designed for aging -- drink it fresh.

The pinup model for the label, Bernie Dexter, will be on hand at the release party tomorrow, and she will even be manning a kissing booth.  This year's label has her dressed a little more modestly than years past, so I guess they had to kick it up a notch by allowing actual physical contact. You'll also get another chance to try it this weekend at the Cheers to Belgian Beers festival: Friday, April 19th from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and Saturday, April 20th from noon to 8 p.m. at Metalcraft Fabrication (723 N. Tillamook).